The gathering of pricing information of a commodity in a real time environment is a challenging task, particularly when numerous individual retailers are present in one particular area defined by a geographical boundary. The prices of commodities under such market conditions tend to fluctuate in an unpredictable manner, rather more abysmally on a daily and hourly basis.
Most of the time, the consumer may be interested in assessing the prices prevailing in a commodity market or in any other convenient market of a nearby location or elsewhere, without he actually visiting the market for such enquiries. Moreover, it might be difficult for him to find the most accurate and instant prices of a commodity, in case he decides to interrogate each vendor individually. The problem is further accentuated if the consumer is checking out the most attractive pricing option; probably because of frequent, volatile, and asynchronous price fluctuations that can occur between the time the prices are observed and the time that the purchase is consummated. One of the other major reasons can be his remote location from a market or his engagement with other relevant tasks or work schedules, traffic, distance etc.
From the perspective of both consumer and the retailer, amidst the dearth of time or looking at his convenience or other subjective factors, it is desirable to provide commodity relevant information without the consumer having to visit the market.
US Patent Application 2007/0050275 describes method to purchase commodity at a low price. Here commodity prices are gathered periodically (may be daily) and the information is updated in the database which leads to the determination of lowest price commodity provider by gathering price details through a computer network.
US Patent Application 2001/0044755 is a trial purchase system which leads to the experience of the commodity purchase procedure that considers computer terminals for information gathering.
US Patent Application 2008/0097916 on “method of collecting and distributing information and sorting by bid price” details a method to advertise the commodity which also facilitates ease in bid price sorting. The system includes a barcode reader and a wireless communication device along with information inputting, storing and sorting system to solve the problem of sorting and advertising of bidding prices.
However, the limitations observed with regard to the above cited arts are—availability of only the statistical information; periodic availability of pricing information (with a delay of a day); requiring a scout to personally visit the market for price collection and maintenance in a database; limitation of retrieving not much accurate, instant and exact information; and ignoring the quality pertaining information of a commodity while collecting the commodity relevant information.
In the light of foregoing limitations, there seems a long-felt, but unresolved need for a system that enables gathering of instant and accurate commodity relevant information at reduced expenses. The need for a system, allowing better exchange of such information via effective communication mode without having to travel to the target market, is what is ardently required.